6 weeks for Maternity leave... for men?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We got a guy here at work that is in his 3rd week of maternity leave. I can understand how a women getting this much time off, but a guy? 6 Weeks! This has really hit us hard without an extra person (not only that, the employer didn’t get a fill in, and doesn’t plan on it). So, assuming there are no complications in pregnancy, what do you feel is a good amount of time off for a man to assist his SO at home? I feel that 3 weeks maximum should be sufficient, anything more, then you need to make other arrangements. IMO, it just isn’t fair for you to get paid for that much time off on top of your already 5-week vacation and 6 days for being sick for the year. My co-worker and myself cannot take any time off during this time period, unless we have died, or someone in our immediate family has died. It’s already happened once, not cool. I’m all for good parenting, but we all ready get 3 days off (4 days alternating weekly). Isn’t that enough? Of course not everybody gets this amount of time off, but you kinda have to know going in that if you have a kid, you do have to work as well, especially if you have a job!

I’m all about you being there for the kid the first few weeks, but anything after that, and you’re just taking advantage.

For the record, this is the second time he’s is doing this. The first time around, he took 6 weeks, and for 2 weeks after that, worked from home! This didn’t really benefit us at all, because #1, all the client calls come here, and #2, you can’t really doing anything productive with a GUI interface and a 28.8 modem. “Well I guess you guys have to do this one.” Whatever.

Now I’ve looked on the net and found some things about laws, but I couldn’t find anything solid. Is six weeks normal, or even a law here in the states, for men?

Sorry, but this has be really angry right now. I know that my anger should be direct more towards my employer, but 6 weeks for a guy seems too excessive. It feels like a raping of the Company, and co-workers.

2

I’m sorry, I think I meant paternity.

3

Well, then, it’s a good thing you don’t live in Scandinavia, where fathers get (IIRC) 12 weeks.

4

Are you sure he’s getting paid? For my job, the FMLA only guaranteed 6 weeks of unpaid leave. No way could I afford to take that much. I was back at my desk a week after delivery. I’d saved up two weeks of paid leave, but the kid wasn’t cooperative about hurrying up and being born on time, so I frittered away a week of it waiting for the labor pains to start. (I’m the Mom in this case.)

I’m torn on the issue. In a perfect world we would all get enough leave time to lead rich full productive work and family lives. (Five regular weeks sounds pretty damned generous to me, BTW.) Those who didn’t choose to have kids could have the occasional 6 week sabbatical or something.

It is far from a perfect world and, in my opinion, the American workplace is very family unfriendly still. Don’t even get me started on the school system.

I’d have to know more about his circumstances. It took me a long time to recover from my first birth and having someone around to take care of the house, errands, etc. was very useful for quite a while.

5

If I’m not mistaken, the Family Medical Leave Act was passed sometime in the mid-90s and allowed mothers AND fathers to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave for, in your co-worker’s case, the birth of a child. It seems your employer opted to pay him for six of those weeks.

I think it’s great.

6

Is the american system that different from the Canadian one?

We get 17 weeks Mat leave (only for the women) and 35 weeks for either parent (split between parents) of paid “parental leave” to a max of 52 weeks!

Of course the government only pays 55% of your pay, while my company puts up another amount to bring it up to 67%.

Americans really get a base 12 weeks unpaid? Sounds harsh!

7

:eek:

Holy crap that generous! I should move to Cananda and start a family! :smiley:

8

Well, I dunno. 67% of my pay isn’t really a lot.

And the GF makes less than I do and her company (a small office) can only give her basic benefits (55% government money) so with one of us unable to work, money will get tight…especially with a child!

One of the main reasons I’m not looking forward to having kids at this point.

Note: I’m not trying to be greedy, 55% is better than nothing but at the same time taxes remove 25% of my normal pay anyways!

9

The company I work for gives ZERO time off for new dads (although they readily allow the use of vacation time).

IMHO, 1 week should be standard, 2 weeks would be great…anything more is getting unnecessary and becomes unfair to the company.

10

As I understand the Family Medical Leave Act, it is designed to protect your job in case you have to be absent for a prolonged period of time due to a family medical crisis. Once your vacation and sick leave have all been used up, the employer does not need to continue paying you. Only to guarantee that you’ll still have a job when you come back. As to the time limits involved here, I don’t know.

When my daughter was born, my wife went into severe postpartum depression. I took the full 12 weeks of paternity leave that I was permitted, and it’s a darned good thing that I did. Fortunately for me, I had a huge vacation/sick leave balance saved up.

11

True and understandable. But with the amount of time off and the only penalty being a 1/3 reduction in salary ain’t too shabby.

12

Did the guy’s wife have a C-section? Significant complications? A premature baby? There’s a lot of reasons why a new mother might still be bedridden or overwhelmed by the job and would need help.

13

How do you know the mom is not going to work and letting dad do the child care thing? It’s also possible that she had complications of one sort or another and has restrictions upon what she can do.

Guy I work with already had a less than 1 y.o. child when his wife unexpectedly conceived again. Only this time it was twins. Just to make things more fun, she had just been named a partner in the law firm she works at. As soon as she was physically able, she was back continuing to make more money than he did, and he was home taking care of 3 babies.

14

You say that your co-worker has taken six weeks of paternity leave before. Do you know how old their first child is? Even after a perfectly healthy birth, taking care of a two-year-old and a newborn by yourself would be daunting. Some families are lucky enough to have grandparents, aunties and uncles, and friends who can help take care of the mom while she heals and takes care of the little one for the first few weeks. Many do not. Your co-worker may be one of those families that doesn’t have that kind of support network.

Sounds like you should really be annoyed at your boss. S/he presumably knew that the co-worker was taking paternity leave and had time to make arrangments to get the rest of you some temporary help.

Whoa. It’s not like the guy is selling trade secrets or embezzling thousands of dollars. If the boss is willing to give him the leave, why shouldn’t he take it? His first loyalty should be to his family, not his employer or co-workers.

15

In Sweden parental leave is 1.5 years to be split between the parents at their discretion. One month of this is only for the fathers use, so if he doesn’t take it it goes forfeit. There are serious discussions about making it a 50/50 split. Many people use their parental leave in such a mannner that they have part of it as a lump sum, and then work a 3 day week for example for many months. Most guys take their parental leave during the summer so they don’t have to take holidays, thus saving the household money, and also cos it’s nice to be off in the summer.

16

Haha. If I were an employer in Sweden, my company would be completely staffed by gays and post-menopausal women.

17

I’m weighing in with Burundi. It really doesn’t matter why you’re understaffed. In some cases a coworker may be out, and you would have no right even to know the reason.

I’d lead the discussion toward ensuring adequate coverage regardless of the circumstances. And telecommuting could be a part of that, but planning and management need to go into making sure you are getting productivity out of your telecommuters. For example, paying to set the guy up with DSL or a cable modem would be a lot cheaper than hiring a temp. And hold him, or anyone working from home, accountable for productivity.

18

I think the guy was right to take the 6 weeks when it was offered! If he wants to spend time with his new baby and wife I don’t see why there’s a problem.

19

I took six weeks off (burning all vacation and medical leave) when my twins were born and my wife recovered from the C section.

If you’re upset the guy wants to spend time with his FAMILY, that’s YOUR problem, not HIS.

I’m very grateful I has the opportunity to do this as it is the single largest life transforming experience I’ve EVER had.

Mr. Advisory, do you have children? I suspect your responses would be different if you do. (and if they aren’t, well, I won’t even allude to your misplaced priorities. oops, I guess I did, didn’t I?)

A job is a place to earn money to provide shelter, food, and if lucky, some pretty good things in life. There will always be other jobs, there won’t always be the time to be with brand new family members WHILE they’re brand new.

20

6 weeks is not really a long time or an unreasonable amount of time for him to be home helping with baby. Especially if they have another young child at home.

My husband took two weeks of vacation with each of our kids and worked from home for a few weeks after our daughter was home and works from home permanently now.

With child number 1 - we spent 6 days in the hospital after an induction failed and I needed a C section. I came home with a beautiful case of pneumonia and barely remember the next two weeks other than a blur of drugged sleep and caughing fits. So much for our fairy-tale idea of what bringing her home would be like.

With child number 2 - we went for a routine test and ended up having a baby that day. Another C section and now we had not only the preemie but our 2 year old to contend with. And our son didn’t come home from the hospital until he was two weeks old. So my husband had to work, help me deal with surgery recovery and a toddler and the fried feelings of having a preemie who I couldn’t take home. Then when he came home we had a whole new dynamic in the house to adjust to.

When you are coping with all those changes even without the complications I had 6 weeks would fly by in a pinch. Those first 6 weeks contain lots of doctor appointments for both mom and baby, a lot of sleeplessness and plenty of soreness for mom no matter how baby is born.

I would think your gripe should be with your employer who obviously did not adequately plan and cover the missing employee’s workload for these six weeks and not with the guy who is taking care of his family.